Internet and technology executives who have been called today to Capitol Hill to defend their companies' practices in China will have to endure finger-pointing and name-calling by Washington lawmakers. But even the most ardent anti-China hawks know there is little chance that Congress will ever force US companies to abandon a country so vital both to the future of American corporations and to US foreign policy interests. Instead, legislators, human rights activists and the companies at the centre of the debate over how US internet groups should operate in China are exploring a handful of measures that have guided corporate America through previous travails with undemocratic regimes.